The Darkest Lie Read Online Free Page B

seems like they all want a piece of me. The reporters who camped out on my lawn. The boys who raked me over with their eyes. Even my girlfriends who pumped me for every bit of gossip. They gobbled me up and spit me back out, and I can’t give them any more of myself. I just can’t.
    So I give Mr. Willoughby the only possible answer: “Yes.”
    He sighs. “That’s what I was afraid of. But although you’re too stubborn for your own good, you’ve always been a good student. So I’m going to let you do extra credit to bolster your grade. I’ve spoken with Principal Winters and gotten his approval. You may choose any community service activity you wish to make up for not turning in your journal.”
    My eyes widen. He’s letting me off easy. A little too easy, given his strict classroom policies. “You mean I just have to work in the outdoor classroom? Or pick up trash by the lake? That’s it?”
    â€œWhatever you wish.”
    Okay, now I know something is really off. When I had him for freshman English, I once lost a daily homework assignment. He made me write a fifteen-page paper on Jane Austen to make up for it. And now I fail to turn in an entire journal, and all I have to do is clear a few weeds? Doesn’t make sense.
    â€œWhy are you being so nice to me?” I blurt out. Stupid, stupid. I should leave this golden opportunity alone. If he’s giving me a free pass, I should grab it before he changes his mind.
    â€œI know your mom’s passing hasn’t been easy for you.” He lowers his voice. “But you can’t stop living just because she has. You can’t give up just because life has gotten too hard.”
    His tone is appropriately mournful and wise—but there’s something else there, too. Some hard undertone that almost sounds like anger. But that doesn’t make any sense. He and my mom were colleagues, but he barely knew her. At least as far as I know.
    â€œI haven’t given up,” I say, watching his face. Trying to understand where the harshness is coming from.
    But he gives nothing away.
    â€œGood.” He stands and ushers me to the door. Our meeting is over. “Think about what I said. Talk it over with your dad, and you can let me know which activity you pick in the morning.”
    I open my mouth, to argue or question or protest, but he doesn’t give me the chance. He pushes me the rest of the way into the hall and closes the door.
    I’m left where I always am. Alone.

Chapter 4
    A few hours later, I grip the pencil so tightly my hand begins to cramp. The tension shoots up my neck, but I keep drawing anyway—bold, dramatic slashes that bring my mother to life again.
    Today, she is a serpent eating her own tail. I shade the underside of her belly and draw flames flickering up her scales. There. A circle of fire. Passion that quite literally devours her alive.
    All my drawings are like this. Half portrait, half cartoon. It’s why I want to be a children’s book illustrator. Mackenzie Myers has the elongated canines of a saber-toothed cat, while Alisara drops a worm into the wide-open mouth of a baby bird.
    Sam, in the quick sketch I did, rides a majestic horse, his eyes piercing straight into me.
    And my mother? She’s got more faces than a con man. Whatever emotions I’ve felt in the last six months, she’s worn them all.
    My pencil snaps between my fingers when I hear the garage door. I have just enough time to shove the black-and-white notebook into my backpack before my dad enters the kitchen.
    â€œHi, sweetheart,” he says wearily, not looking at me, but I don’t take it personally. He never looks at me, and everything about him is weary, from his hair, which turned a shocking white the month after my mom’s death, to his faded jeans, splattered with paint and bits of dried concrete from his job as a construction foreman. “How was your first day of